| Michael | |
|---|---|
| |
| Biological Information | |
| Species | Human |
| Status | Deceased |
| Universe Information | |
| Home universe | Earth-1 |
| General Information | |
| Occupation | Original multiverse Agent of the Time Bureau (formerly) Director of the Time Bureau (formerly) Member of the Legends (formerly) Member of the Legion of Doom (under mind alteration; formerly) Film student and director (formerly) New multiverse Leader of the Legends (formerly) |
| Affiliation | Original multiverse Legends (formerly) Time Bureau (formerly) Legion of Doom (under mind alteration; formerly) Time Masters (formerly) New multiverse Legends (formerly) |
| Family | Miranda Coburn (wife; deceased) Jonas Hunter (son; deceased) |
| Actor | Arthur Darvill Aiden Longworth (young) |
| Source | |
- "When my family was killed, I thought there was no way I could go on, but I did. The truth of our existence is that we're all blessed and cursed with the drive to move forward. Live the next day. To get better."
- — Rip Hunter
Michael, known under the alias Rip Hunter, is a male Human who is a former Time Master from the 26th century, the foster son of Mary Xavier, the husband of the late Miranda Coburn, and the father of the late Jonas Hunter.
After his wife and son were murdered by Vandal Savage, Rip went rogue and recruited a team of 24th century superheroes and supervillains, whose actions had minimal effect on history, in a team known as the "Legends". Their goal was to travel through time and put an end to Savage, and prevent the deaths of his family before his rise to power could happen. However, his plan was opposed by the Time Masters, as Savage's uprising didn't endanger the timeline itself, and they sent various agents after him and his team to kill them and stop them from succeeding. Additionally, the flawed nature of the Legends' members often resulted in numerous timeline alterations in their quest, much to Rip's annoyance. Ultimately, Rip wasn't able to prevent Savage's uprising or save his family after learning the Time Masters were in league with Savage all along and orchestrated his family's death precisely to manipulate him. However, Rip still succeeded in killing Savage before he could fulfill a plot that would destroy time itself, and brought the end of the corrupt Time Masters. With the Time Masters no longer active, Rip decided to continue their mantle with the surviving/returning members of the Legends.
After 6 months of correcting aberrations caused by time pirates, the Legends encountered an aberration caused by Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash. After the Waverider took a critical hit, Rip used the time drive after securing a fragment of the Spear of Destiny to escape, but suffered amnesia, believing his life to be a figment of his imagination as he landed in 1967, and went to film school under a new identity as Phil Gasmer. Rip was later captured by Eobard's Legion of Doom and served the syndicate unwillingly, under mind alteration to retrieve the other spear pieces. After Sara and Jax ventured into his subconscious, they were able to restore his mind and he re-joined the Legends. After the Legion of Doom gained the Spear of Destiny and rewrote reality, the Waverider along with Rip was shrunken down by Thawne with Ray's exo-suit. After communicating with the Legends and unshrinking the ship they travel back to 1916 and break the cardinal rule of time travel to interact with their past selves, to prevent the Legion from getting the Spear of Destiny in the first place, eventually being successful. Rip decides to leave the team; to create an organization known as the Time Bureau. However due to his obsession with the entity Mallus, which resulted in several Time Bureau agents dying at the hands of Damien Darhk, he was discharged, arrested, and later escaped custody.
After escaping custody, he re-joined the Legends with Wally. After Director Bennet of the Time Bureau dies, he was reinstated by the new director Ava Sharpe. Later, Rip sacrificed himself to buy the Legends time in their fight against Mallus by blowing himself up with one of the Waverider's time drives, in an attempt to stall the demon long enough so that the team could escape.
Personality[]
- "So you're saying you don't fit in. You're an outcast. A misfit."
"Let's assume."
"Sounds to me like you're a Legend." - — Rip Hunter and Sara Lance
Rip is seen to be a highly compassionate man who deeply loves his wife Miranda Coburn, and his son Jonas, so much so that he broke his oath to the Time Masters to travel through time and save them from their demise. He also wanted to save the future from an apocalyptic world that was believed to be caused by Vandal Savage. However, he later found that it was the Thanagarians that would destroy the world and Vandal was being helped by the Time Masters to defend Earth and prevent their attack, even if it meant destroying Rip's family in the process. Seeking revenge, he hunted Savage throughout time in an attempt to kill him before he could rise to power, but he failed to do so on his own, leading him to gather a group of unknowns to aid him.
Rip's decision to take a chance on changing the timeline can be seen as noble. While he does want to save his family, he also does want to see a better future where Vandal is not a threat. However, his love for his family trumped everything else, as he does not regret breaking his loyalty to the Time Masters. When Rip discovers that the Time Masters are in league with Vandal, as well as the fact that they have been manipulating history and are responsible for the death of his family; he becomes disgusted by their actions and completely turns against the very organization he once had respect for. While his motivation to save his family and the future are honorable, his tactics to achieve his goal brought him into conflict with not only his former employers, who were secretly manipulating and controlling events with the Oculus, but his own team. Rip mislead them on the roles they play in history by making it seem they are remembered as some of the greatest heroes, though later admits he chose them specifically because they actually have no real impact on the timeline. He also has little patience for anything that sidetracks him and the team from their pursuit, preferring to focus on the matters at hand.
Rip is shown to have a tendency to let his temper get the best of him, to the point that he ends up arguing with his own team. He can also be so absorbed in sticking to the mission to stop Vandal that he disregards the feelings of others. For instance, he harshly scolded Sara Lance for wanting to aid her home Star City in the year 2412, accusing her of having more concern for one potential future than she did the real one, and even threatened to leave her there if she did not return in an hour, either not understanding or not caring that it would certainly take longer for her to save Star City from Grant Wilson. On another occasion when frustrated after being taken prisoner by time pirates he bluntly told Mick Rory he had only been recruited to the team because of his partnership with Leonard Snart, with this revelation partially enforcing Rory's decision to betray the team.
It is revealed that even as a child, Rip was fearless, cunning, and even ruthless, willing to perform brutal and criminal acts to survive due to him living on the street and starving more than he ate. He was also very tough for someone of his age, standing up to more powerful foes without any hesitation. This is evident when his child-self pretended to be normal and innocent, as well as ignorant of the Pilgrim's intentions to kill him, only for him to stab her when she was distracted and gloating at the team. Rip's knowledge of what his younger self would do if someone tried to harm him is what led to him including the child in his plan to defeat The Pilgrim and ultimately led to her death. As an adult, he is a ruthless fighter and expressed great rage at Vandal Savage when he got to temporarily kill him the first time and when he chose to shove him into electrical breakers to kill him for the final time, instead of simply shooting him.
As he attempted to take the Nth metal meteorite into the Sun to keep it from destroying Earth, Rip underwent a near-death experience where he had a vision of his wife and son. This vision allowed him to finally come to terms with their deaths and let go of his obsession with saving them from Savage in the future. In this experience, he was shown to be extremely emotional, hugging his son tightly and holding onto his wife with the same emotions. Now having gained closure, Rip has become a far more stable individual, no longer allowing his passion or hatred for Vandal to overcome him, having made it full circle as an individual and as a leader.
As Phil Gasmer[]
Rip, under a new identity as Phil Gasmer, had retained some of his prior traits. Although Phil seems more anxious and fearful than his previous self, he showed that he was still courageous when it counted. He tried to help the Legends when they were engaged in a fight against the Legion, and made an attempt at escaping while a prisoner of said group. Phil was also shown to be creative, having been implied to have spent some time in film school before the appearance of the Legends, and coming up with an interesting solution to pose as Rip Hunter to help them in battle.
Under mind alteration by the Legion of Doom[]
While Rip is under mind alteration thanks to Eobard's tampering of his memories, it rendered him a ruthless, immoral, cruel and cold version of himself. His loyalty has seemingly shifted, as he is now obeying the commands of the Legion and shares in their determination to find the Spear of Destiny at any cost. These traits were demonstrated several times as Rip is willing to kill his former teammates to achieve a piece of a spear. He was not hesitant to shoot Sara in the stomach and later crush her throat while choking her when she was helpless and wounded. This was after having bombed the ship with an electromagnetic pulse and therefore disabled its medical equipment. Despite his cold attitude, he was slightly sarcastic and humorous, such as when he claimed to have found time-traveling fun after killing General Washington to lure his teammates into the past to try and kill them. When hunting for and shooting at Jax, he briefly tried to convince him that they could use the spear to save the latter's father, James Jackson, only to attack once again when Jax refused, showing he was willing to manipulate in order to achieve his goals. He had also shown arrogance, believing his old self to be a fool for believing that time was worth protecting. Instead, Rip believed that there was no point in protecting history, as he viewed it only as "war and slavery and holding a dead son in your arms", which implies that Rip's new personality is influenced by the loss of his family. His cruelty was enough for him to have no qualms with killing Charles when cutting a piece of the spear out of his body after not being able to trick him into giving it willingly.
Abilities[]
- Peak of human physical condition: As a former Time Master, Rip was in top physical condition. He was strong enough to crush Sara Lance's throat (who was in critical condition at the time) with little effort and using only one hand.
- Genius-level intellect/Expert tactician/Leader: As a former Time Master, Rip had an immense understanding of the flow of time, able to calculate what events will affect the time-stream and by how small/large a margin. Rip was very intelligent as he was the creator of the first time sphere. He also knows a lot about the flow of the timeline, able to calculate every change and it's consequences. Rip was a great leader as he led the Legends while they were fighting Vandal Savage. He later creates the Time Bureau to replace the Time Master after he didn't see any reason to stay on the ship if he wasn't captain.
- Master engineer: Rip was proven to be extremely skilled in building and repairing time travel technology, designing the first Time Sphere and teaching Jax everything on how to repair the Waverider. Additionally, during his last five years, Rip was able to create the time courier, which could open portals into any time period.
- Bilingualism: Rip can speak his native British-dialect English, as well as Arabic due to his extensive studying of the League of Assassins.
- Skilled cook: While the Legion of Doom had Rip prisoner on the miniature Waverider, he perfected his baking skills with Gideon being the only other one on board.
- Expert investigator: Upon finding a corpse, Rip was able to instantly deduce numerous details about the person's death.
- Expert hand-to-hand combatant: Rip was a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant, able to defeat most opponents with ease. He was able to fight evenly against Scythian Torvil, the reincarnated version of Carter Hall from 2532, though the fight was inconclusive as Rip and the team fell back due to being outnumbered by Vandal Savage's forces. Rip was even able to go toe-to-toe with Vandal Savage himself in 1975, managing to both out-skill and overpower Savage and slit his throat to kill him, albeit temporarily. This is made more notable by the fact that Savage would go on to challenge and even defeat Oliver Queen himself in 2388, a mere 413 years later. While it is likely that the Savage in 1975 was somewhat less skilled than the one that faced Oliver, the fact that Rip was able to so easily defeat any version of Savage is impressive in its own right. Additionally, Rip has shown overt confidence in his fighting abilities, shown when he was willing to face Ra's al Ghul in 1960. How he would have actually fared in such a fight remains to be seen. However, despite his impressive showings of skill, it has been shown that Rip can be easily overwhelmed, particularly by larger opponents. This is seen most prominently when he struggled to handle a large member of the Solntsevskaya Bratva in 1986, with Sara Lance even commenting on Rip's inability to take him down. He also struggled against Jon Valor for a significant amount of time, though he did end up winning the fight quite handily in the end.
- Master marksman: Rip had shown high levels of skill in the use of his sidearm. As seen in a showdown in 1871, Rip is a very skilled quick-draw and sharpshooter, able to beat Jeb Stillwater with ease. Additionally, he was able to blast a knife out of Vandal Savage's grip with a single, precise shot of his plasma revolver.
- Skilled knife wielder: Rip was able to both disarm Vandal Savage of a knife and use it against him to great effect, slitting his throat and temporarily killing him.
- Singing: As seen through a karaoke session with Wally West in Tokyo, Rip was capable of singing.
Equipment[]
- Energy gun: Rip carries an energy gun that resembles a six-shooter, but fires blue bolts. The energy rounds can easily cause damage to solid materials or even stun foes wearing advanced body-armor such as Chronos. The gun's energy shots seem less harmful to those wearing future clothing, as Jon Valor was unharmed when shot. With such clothing, a shot from the gun is the equivalent of being struck in melee combat. Rip owns at least two versions of this gun, with one of them glowing green and firing green bolts and the other glowing red and firing red bolts.
- Stun device: Rip owns a flashlight-like device used to render others unconscious with a flash of light. He notably used this device to capture his original team members to recruit them, as well to capture Per Degaton and sedate Mick Rory to put him in stasis. Ray Palmer took possession of the stunner after Rip disappeared, attempting to stun a zombified Mick Rory with it while locking him in the medical bay, though it failed. The device is also capable of erasing memories, as Mick and Sara Lance used the device to erase the memories of Leonard Snart and Damien Darhk of their time as time travelers with the Legion of Doom.
- Time courier: Rip carries a time courier. This device allows him to transport through time and space without the need of a timeship.
- Waverider: Rip owns one of the most powerful timeships of all-time, the Waverider, which he and his team use to jump through time and find Vandal Savage. The ship was stolen from the Time Masters. The ship is also used for protecting the timeline.